NC's 2015 Life Science Billion-Dollar Deals

Two life science mega-deals reaching or exceeding the $1 billion threshold were struck in North Carolina during 2015:

  • Novo Nordisk announced it would invest $1.85 billion to expand its manufacturing campus in Clayton and double its 700-employee workforce there. The Danish producer of diabetes drugs and insulin-delivery systems, hemophilia drugs and hormone therapies has operated the plant for 22 years. The new 200,000-square-foot facility will expand the company’s ability to produce ingredients for current and future diabetes-fighting products when it begins operation in 2020. The new jobs will pay an average $68,420, nearly twice the average wage in Johnston County. More.
  • Two days after Raleigh-based Sprout Pharmaceuticals won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell its only drug candidate, the company said it had accepted a $1 billion cash offer to be acquired by Canadian giant Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Sprout’s only product, a version of flibanserin trademarked as Addyi, was approved to treat acquired, generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women. Sprout remains in Raleigh as a division of Valeant, which has been adding to the division’s 34-member workforce. More.

Read more highlights of the year’s top life science success stories statewide.

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